Dance Commentary and Reviews by Heather Desaulniers, freelance dance critic, former dancer and choreographer, PhD in dance history.

Saturday, August 16, 2014

Paufve | Dance & Kate Weare Company

ODC Theater presents

Music Moves Festival

ODC Theater, San
Francisco

August 15th,
2014

Experimentation;
exploration; excellence. These three Es are embedded in ODC Theater’s DNA, and their
current artistic endeavor, curated by ODC Deputy Director for Advancement Christy
Bolingbroke, provides further confirmation. The Music Moves Festival takes the ODC
Theater stage into full incubator mode, with the goal of discovering, uncovering,
affirming and highlighting the distinct relationship between dance and music. To
that end, Music Moves welcomes over a dozen performing artists in eleven
different programs over three plus weeks – a significant number of unique
perspectives on dance and music.

For the festival’s
shared seventh chapter, two stunning contemporary companies brought three dance
works, each speaking distinctly to music and sound: Paufve | Dance in 2013’s “Soil”
and Kate Weare Company in “Drop Down” (2007) and “Still Life With Avalanche”
(2014). All three pieces certainly had noteworthy construction and performances.
Yet with this festival’s focus, it seems right to concentrate the majority of
comments and observations to the connection between choreography and musical composition.

This was a totally
different “Soil” than 2013’s site-specific premiere engagement last fall in the
East Bay Hills. Here, four dancers (Randee Paufve, Maureen Miner, Peiling Kao
and

Pictured: Randee Paufve in "Soil"Photo: Pak Han

Juliana Monin) took on the set of five solos (choreographed by Gregg
Bielemeier, Della Davidson and Paufve). This time “Soil” was not mobile, instead
unfolding in a proscenium arch space with a more traditional audience/performer
arrangement. In addition, the dance had no stops and starts, it fed seamlessly
from one portion to the next. Considering the work within the context of Music
Moves’ theme, “Soil” examined contemporary dance alongside a collection of live
music and recorded scores. There is somewhat of a bias that dance performance with
live music elicits better results, but “Soil” illustrates that the pairing of
movement with both recorded and live music can be revelatory. In the opening
solo, Paufve and cellist Chris Evans engaged in an active conversation. Though
the choreography and music both appeared set, the music was not accompanying
the dance nor was the dance prescribed to the music. Together, they were
creating a live state of reaction and interpretation. A perfect example was when
Paufve drew her arms and leg across her body in retiré passé, while Evans similarly
stretched and extended her note. In the second variation, Miner approached the mixed
musical articulation of a recorded score. Equal parts detached staccato and
lush legato peppered the complex composition, handily expressed by Miner. A
particularly beautiful moment was when those two articulations came together in
the movement – she shot her arm into the air like an arrow and then immediately
gathered it into a flowing, circular pathway. Peiling Kao’s post-modern solo had
a combination of recorded and live music (by Elijah Wallace at the piano) and
it was her character that evolved depending on the type of music used. With the
piano, whimsy and playfulness took over and with the recording, a more staid,
controlled state was present. In the fourth segment, a wind-based soundscore
helped create a setting and environment that framed Paufve’s dramatic solo. After
last year’s viewing, I noted that from time to time, the music and movement in
“Soil” didn’t match, particularly in the fifth and final solo (danced here by
Monin, then Paufve, with Wallace again on the piano). While I still noticed
that discord at this performance, I could also see and hear it with a new
mindset. There was a conversation between the physicality and the sound; it was
just on two different wavelengths. Same topic, two opposing opinions – we have
all had interactions just like that. The takeaway from 2014’s iteration of
“Soil” is that both live and recorded music can collaborate with choreography in
real-time.

Following intermission,
Kate Weare’s choreography took center stage with two modern works, both
performed to recorded music. First up was “Drop Down”, a dramatic, passionate,
volatile, defiant, demanding, tango-inspired duet danced by Joseph Hernandez
and Natasha Adorlee Johnson (guest artists appearing courtesy of ODC/Dance).
Katie Down’s score was complexly layered with music, sound effects, electric interjections
and ambient noise. While very different from each other, the choreography and
the score had the same fundamental

intention – to produce a feeling of
purposeful uneasiness. The harsh, dissonance sounds were periodically difficult
to listen to, and Weare’s movement had similar moments of tumult (Johnson’s
drop to the ground following a gorgeous knee lift drew gasps). And what the audience
learned here about music and movement is that both disciplines were necessary
to craft this level of narrative instability. “Drop Down” was on the edge,
unexpected and provocative and incidentally, was also the best piece on the
program.

Closing the evening was
Weare’s “Still Life With Avalanche”, a trio danced by Dennis Adams, Justin
Andrews and Anne Zivolich (also guest artists appearing courtesy of ODC/Dance).
Directed in partnership with Brenda Way and with recorded music by Wolfgang
Capellari, Gerard Pesson and Missy Mazzoli, “Still Life With Avalanche” was an
example of ‘new’ neo-classical choreography. Sounds like a redundant term, but “Still
Life With Avalanche” really shows an updated version of this celebrated choreographic
style. One of the primary tenets of neo-classical choreography is how the steps
mark and emphasize the score. “Still Life With Avalanche” had this in spades.
From the initial crawling to parallel jumps in first to the swinging, metronome
arms, the recorded composition was reflected well on the stage. What moved the
style into this ‘new’ neo-classicism was the choreographic vocabulary itself.
The movement choices were innovative and risky, fresh and of this moment – it
was clearly a daring approach to neo-classical structure. One noted highlight
was Zivolich’s pencheé arabesque. She extended her leg fully and when we
thought the movement was over, her foot rotated in a complete circle. And the final
moment of the dance brought a burst of surprise as the trio darted to the floor
in the points of a triangle. Having said that, “Still Life With Avalanche” did suffer
from some dynamic stagnancy. Much of the time, the movement and the music
existed at the same intensity level, which led to some long lulls. And so, it
was a slightly odd choice for the finale of this otherwise powerful program of
sound and physicality.